1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the manufacturing of wood board, and more particularly to using teak heartwood and teak sapwood for making wood boards having surfaces with straight-line grain.
2. Description of the Related Art
Teak is a precious wood which has become increasingly rare in natural forests. Consequently, most teak wood now comes from trees cultivated in plantations where growth is managed so that a high proportion of trees will reach a good average height before flowering sets in, making branching more profuse. To obtain high quality wood from a cultivated tree it must have aged for over twenty-five years to be big enough to consist of a relatively large amount of heartwood compared to the amount of sapwood. The brown heartwood can be transformed into wooden boards with surfaces which have aesthetically pleasing straight-line grain patterns and are resistant to termites and to other insects and fungi. The white sapwood, which usually lacks line grain and is highly susceptible to fungus infection, is cut out and discarded. In managing a teak plantation it is necessary to do a thinning six or seven years after a xe2x80x9cstandxe2x80x9d is planted, in order that the remaining trees can have space to grow. Because the young, small trees cut down consist of a relatively large amount of sapwood compared to the amount of heartwood, their lumber generally is not used to manufacture boards but as flammable material or in cheap wall partitions.
It is an object of the present invention to provide processes for cutting teak lumber which allow portions of teak trees which heretofore have been discarded or used for low quality applications such as building cheap partitions and providing fuel, to be suitable for higher quality applications such as making furniture and decorative articles.
Another object of the invention is to provide processes for cutting teak sapwood lumber into logs which can be used to make boards having surfaces with straight-line grain pattern.
These and other objects as well as features and advantages of the invention will become further apparent from the detailed description and accompanying figures that follow. In the figures and description, numerals indicate the various features of the invention, like numerals referring to like features throughout both the drawings and description.
In one aspect the invention provides a process for manufacturing a teak board having at least one surface with straight-line grain. The process includes: (a) cutting a teak timber across its annual ring to form an end with a planar surface bounding four sectors having non-bud structure and four sectors having bud structure, the sectors alternating between non-bud and bud type with each including heartwood and sapwood; (b) cutting longitudinally through the planar surface along a first plurality of generally parallel lines and a second plurality of generally parallel lines generally orthogonal to the first plurality of lines, thereby forming a plurality of logs each having at least one side with straight-line grain; and (c) forming a board by aligning and contiguously attaching the logs so that at least one of the composite surfaces so formed has straight-line grain.
In another aspect the invention provides a teak wood board including a plurality of contiguously attached logs. Each log is predominately sapwood and has at least one surface with straight-line grain. The logs are aligned so that straight-line grain surfaces of the logs collectively form a straight-line grain surface of the board.
In still another aspect the invention provides a teak wood board including a plurality of contiguously attached logs. Each log is entirely sapwood and has at least one surface with straight-line grain. The logs are aligned so that straight-line grain surfaces of the logs collectively form a straight-line grain surface of the board.
In yet another aspect the invention provides a teak wood board including a plurality of contiguously attached planks. Each plank is entirely sapwood and has at least one surface with straight-line grain. The logs are aligned so that straight-line grain surfaces of the planks collectively form a straight-line grain surface of the board.